Bibi Won

This post is being written 3 hours before Bibi Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress.

No matter what he says. No matter how many additional Democrats boycott his speech. No matter how many of Barack Obama's many supporters in the media demonize Netanyahu's  efforts to protect his country. No matter how many left-wing pundits call Bibi a warmonger. No matter how many anti-Israel leftists try to conflate the threat of Iran with a phony "occupation" of what they incorrectly and dishonestly claim are "palestinian" lands. No matter whether the speech falls flat or is well received. No matter what.

Bibi won!

He won because he has put these negotiations and their outcome under a microscope. No longer will this president and his Team of 2s be able to cut a deal with Iran under the radar. Even Obama's trained hamsters in the media will be forced to look at the details, to ask whether it's possible to verify any arrangement Obama makes with the Mullahs. The Congress will be forced into an oversight role and not rubber stamp a 'Chamberlainesque' deal that does little to stop Iran and pushes the most unstable region in the world into nuclear arms race.

Bibi won. Before he said a word in the Congress. He won ... because he has truth on his side. He won ... because on Iran, he is right—100 percent right.

UPDATE (after the Netanyahu speech)
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As expected, Bibi Netanyahu gave an historic address, clearly and unequivocally stating the reasons why the deal that Obama and his Team of 2s are heading for is a very bad one, for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for the World.

Obama and his Team of 2s will forge ahead, desperate for a deal, any deal. Hopefully their efforts will fail and Iran will walk away. Appeasement of Iran is to be condemned, particularly because it is, after all is said and done, predicated on providing Barack Obama with a foreign policy "legacy." If this were not the case, why rush headlong into a very bad deal.

There's still another reason for Obama's appeasement stratgy and Richard Fernandez explains it well:

One of the reasons why president Obama can’t let Benjamin Netanyahu stand in the way of Iran’s nuclear ambitions is because he needs Tehran’s troops to fight ISIS. Today the long awaited offensive against ISIS in Tikrit reeled off with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the lead, if not in actual command. Julian Barnes of the Wall Street Journal explains that Iran will be supplying the men and leadership. The US will be waiting by the phone to supply air support if requested. The phone has not rung.

Though he claims he has top billing, the president appears to be an extra in this operation. But Obama will accept whatever bit-roles are thrown his way because he needs Iran to get him out of the jam caused by his feckless withdrawal from the region. ISIS flourished in the resulting vacuum and daily humiliates the president with publicized outrages. With Obama powerless to prevent it, he needs someone who can pull him out of the quicksand.

But as the Daily Beast notes the price will be steep. “The bargain for making a deal with Iran, these critics say, has allowed Iran a free hand to assert dominance in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.” Having spent years campaigning against American military action Obama has essentially left himself no other choice but to rely on someone else. ”Such an approach is also politically unfeasible due to American war weariness and scepticism of any mission with shifting goalposts.

I guess Obama refuses to believe that, as Bibi cleverly put it, when it comes to Iran, "The enemy of your enemy is your enemy."

But back to U.S. actions relative to a very bad agreement.

The pivotal players are the Democrats in Congress. Some showed their cards when they boycotted the speech and refused to hear a reasonable counter-argument from Netanyahu, using idiotic procedure reasons that are an insult to their constituents and to the truth.

It is the Democrats, and the Democrats alone, that can reign in this president in this situation. A few (e.g., Senator Robert Menendez) have shown considerable courage and bucked the White House, but the majority continue their Stepford wives march behind a president who is dead wrong on this issue. The tragedy is that many of them know this, but put party loyalty above what is right for the United States, Israel, and the world.

Brett Stevens comments:

The Democratic Party is on the cusp of abandoning the state of Israel. That’s a shame, though less for Israel than it is for the Democrats.

The Democrats’ historic support for the Jewish state has always been what’s best about the party. The understanding not only that Jews are entitled to a state, but also that a liberal democracy is entitled to defend itself—robustly and sometimes pre-emptively—against illiberal enemies, is why the party of Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan commands historic respect ...

In March 2012, Mr. Obama insisted “my policy is not containment, my policy is to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.” He has said as much on some 20 other occasions. But the deal being contemplated now, with a sunset provision that will ultimately give Iran the right to enrich in whatever quantities and to whatever levels it wants, is neither prevention nor containment.

It’s facilitation.

All of this is dreadful policy for Washington. But it is a sellout of Jerusalem, one that can’t be rectified by some additional military funding or the usual token measures by which Democrats atavistically affirm their support for Israel. Chuck Schumer and other liberal fence-sitters will have their reputations and consciences stained forever if they let this one pass.

As for Israel, at least it will be able to say that it gave fair warning to the Democrats of the historic betrayal in which they are being asked by the president to participate. In the end, everyone is accountable to history. At moments like this, it’s better to be on the side of the brave.

Very little bravery has been evident among the Dems over the last six years. And far to little has been in evidence concerning the Iran appeasement. History will judge them on this—and history will not be kind.

UPDATE -- II (an hour later)
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There will be millions of words written about Bibi's speech in the next few days, but I think conservative blogger Glen Reynolds summarized nicely when he writes about the speech:

The most damaging thing to Obama here isn’t even the substance, but the contrast in style. Netanyahu, as someone said on Twitter, was better in his second language than Obama is in his first. And he presented himself as a leader who cares about his country, rather than one, like Obama, who makes excuses for its enemies.

Ouch.